JATOI GHULAM MUSTAFA (1934

JATOI, GHULAM MUSTAFA (1934- ) Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi is one of the largest landowners in Pakistan According to one reckoning, he and his family own more than 80,000 acres of land Ghulam Mustafa entered the national political scene in 1956 when, following the merger of Sindh into the One Unit of West Pakistan and the dissolution of the Sindh Assembly, he inherited the Nawabshah seat from his father, Ghulam Rasool Jatoi The 1962 election to the National Assembly, created under the Constitution of 1962, took Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi to Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s interim capital, as a member from Nawabshah When President Muhammad Ayub Khan allowed the revival of political parties and joined the Convention Muslim League, Jatoi followed him into the new organization He remained with the party until the departure of his friend, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, from the Cabinet of Ayub Khan He resigned from the Muslim League in 1968 and joined the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), founded by Bhutto It was as a PPP candidate that Jatoi returned to the National Assembly, elected in December 1970 When Bhutto took over as president from Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan in December 1971, he invited Jatoi to join the federal Cabinet as a minister In December 1973, Bhutto sent Jatoi to Karachi as the chief minister of Sindh province

He remained in that position until the declaration of martial law by General Zia ul-Haq on 5 July 1977In 1986, following the return of Benazir Bhutto from self-imposed exile in Europe, Jatoi was removed from the chairmanship of the Sindh PPP In July 1986, following a convention held in Lahore, Jatoi launched his own political movement under the banner of the National People’s Party (NPP) The NPP was able to attract some of the “uncles”-including Ghulam Mustafa Khar-who had been forced out of the PPP earlier Jatoi and the NPP fared very poorly in the elections held in 1988 He was unable even to win his traditional Nawabshah seat, losing it to a virtual newcomer in politics However, Jatoi was able to get into the National Assembly in a seat vacated by his friend, Ghulam Mustafa KharIn August 1990, Ms Bhutto was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan Jatoi became the caretaker prime minister and supervised the elections held in October 1990, in which Bhutto lost to a coalition that called itself Islami Jamhuri Itehad (IJI) Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) was the most important component of this coalition

In November 1990, Sharif became prime minister and Jatoi receded into the background